Charlie Hebdo issueNo. 1178 was published on 14 January 2015. It was the first issue after theCharlie Hebdo shooting on 7 January 2015, in which terrorists Saïd and Chérif Kouachi killed twelve people. The edition was put together by survivingCharlie Hebdo cartoonists, journalists, and former contributors and was prepared in a room in the offices ofLibération. The issue's print run of 7.95 million copies became a record for the French press. The publication sparked protests by Muslim demonstrators in Yemen, Pakistan, Mauritania, Algeria, Mali, Senegal, Niger, Chechnya, and other countries. In Niger, violent protests led to 10 deaths.[1]
The issue's contents included many new cartoons, plus prior drawings by four of the slain artists and writings by the two journalists.
TheCharlie Hebdo offices had suffered aterrorist attack on 7 January 2015 in which twelve died, including the editor and several core contributors. The remaining staff initially did not think they could publish the next issue on schedule, but other media organizations encouraged them to do so and offered practical and economic help. On 9 January 2015, the staff and occasional contributors gathered in a room in the offices of the newspaperLibération and were lentcomputers fromLe Monde. There were around 25 people, includingWillem,Luz,Corinne "Coco" Rey,Babouse,Sigolène Vinson,Antonio Fischetti [fr],Zineb El Rhazoui,Richard Malka andLaurent Léger [fr].[2]
Charlie Hebdo has a typicalprint run of 60,000 copies. At first, the survivors' issue was to have a million‑copy print run; it was increased to three million prior to publication due to expectations of high demand.[3]
On the morning of 14 January, thousands of people in France queued in line for hours, waiting for newsstands to open. Within an hour, 700,000 copies had been sold and every newsstand in the country was sold out.[3][4] More copies were delivered the next day, and in total, 1.9 million copies were sold in the first 48 hours.[5]
The issue run was increased again to five million on 14 January, then to seven million,[3][6][7] and finally to 7.95 million, including nearly 760,000 sent for export to 25 countries.[8] The print run was the highest ever for the French press; the previous record was 2.2 million for an issue ofFrance-Soir on the death ofCharles de Gaulle.[9]
The demand was so great that counterfeit copies were already being distributed on 14 January, and issues were being offered on eBay for "exorbitant" prices.[10]
The issue was translated into five languages:[11] English, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and Turkish. There were plans for it to be sold in 25 countries and translated into 16 languages.[12]
The following issue, No. 1179, did not appear until six weeks later, on 25 February 2015. The issue was subtitledC'est reparti ("Here we go again"), which new publishing directorRiss stated was to show the publication had "returned to life" ("La vie reprend"). The issue's print run was 2.5 million.[13]
On 6 January 2016, a special issue (number 1224) was published to commemorate the 2015 attack. Its cover showed God running with a gun and the title "A year later, the killer is still at large" ("Un an après, l'assassin court toujours").[14]
The front page is titled"Tout est pardonné" ("All is forgiven") and features a cartoon ofMuhammad with a tear in his eye and holding a"Je suis Charlie" sign ("I am Charlie").[15] The background colour isgreen. The drawing was made byLuz who has another drawing in which the Kouachi brothers, drawn with angel wings, ask in disappointment: "Bah, where are the 70 virgins?" A speech bubble beside them reads: "They are with the Charlie team, losers."[16] There are no other depictions of Muhammad within the issue.[17]
In theeditorial,editor-in-chiefGérard Biard called for full secularism (laïcité) and regretted that the defense ofCharlie Hebdo against previous threats and arson had often been half-hearted. He added: "All those who claim to defend Muslims, while accepting the totalitarian religious rhetoric, are in fact defending their executioners. The first victims ofIslamic fascism are the Muslims." Describing the magazine as atheist, Biard wrote that the church bells ofNotre-Dame de Paris ringing forCharlie Hebdo had made the staff laugh.[18][19][20]
The back cover features a selection of "covers which we were spared from". One by Walter Foolz is of the Kouachi brothers lamenting the irony of having died in a print shop.[17] Another byCatherine Meurisse shows child labourers makingJe suis Charlie T‑shirts with a text reading: "At the same time in Bangladesh: We stand by you with all our hearts."[21]
In an installment ofRiad Sattouf's ongoing stripLa vie secrète des jeunes ("The secret life of youths") — based on youth conversations Sattouf has overheard — a French Arab youth discusses the shooting on his cellphone and declares he "couldn't give a fuck aboutCharlie Hebdau", but that people should not be killed for what they say. Walter Foolz draws attention to tragedies of greater scale the same week; in the cartoon, one ofBoko Haram's followers declares to another that "that's 2,000 subscribers that Charlie Hebdo won't get", referring to the number of fatalities at theBaga massacre in Nigeria.[17]
Legal reporter Sigolène Vinson, who was told by the attackers that she was spared because she was a woman, writes about thecocker spaniel Lila which ran around in the office while the terrorists were shooting, and mockingly suggests Lila might have been spared because she was female, as well.[20] The psychoanalystElsa Cayat who died in the attack is featured in a cartoon where a man tells her he dreamed he killed the staff atCharlie Hebdo but spared the dog with "long hair and big ears"; the psychoanalyst asks: "And so you had a vision of your mother's sexual organs, right?"[19]
The issue featured drawings by the murdered cartoonistsWolinski,Charb,Tignous, andHonoré, as well, along with texts written by the murdered journalistsBernard Maris andElsa Cayat[16] and a tribute to the policeman Franck and all theother victims.[20] Coco, Luz, Meurisse, andLoïc Schwartz were among those who reported on the Paris demonstrations. David Ziggy Green did so on similar demonstrations atTrafalgar Square in England. Fun is made ofArnold Schwarzenegger's becoming a subscriber.[17]
Prior to the issue being published, the controversial cover was released by the magazine, and media weighed in.Myriam François-Cerrah, a Muslimfreelancejournalist of French paternal descent, criticizedCharlie Hebdo for again using racial stereotypes when portraying Muhammad and Muslims, saying "We (thankfully!) wouldn't accept an image of a hooked-nose Jew, so it is unclear to me why images of hooked-nose Arabs – because forget who the prophet Muhammad is to Muslims, he is an Arab man being depicted in racially stereotypical terms – isn't more disturbing to others."[22]
Art criticJonathan Jones forThe Guardian called the cover "a life-affirming work of art", further writing, "Funny people were killed for being funny; this new cover is the only possible response – a response that makes you laugh."[22]
The Norwegian journalistAnders Giæver gave the cover a "die throw" of six out of six pips in a review inVG titled: "Touché Charlie", writing "So good. So disrespectful. So filled with self-irony."[23]
Editorial writer Sanna Rayman in Sweden'sSvenska Dagbladet found the cover to be an elegant balancing act which combined forgiving reconciliation with determination to assert their right of satirising whomever they want.[24]
Erik Bergersen, editor of the Norwegian satirical siteOpplysningskontoret, wrote an in‑depth commentary inAftenposten after the issue was released. Bergersen said the issue still succeeds as multi-layered satire, hitting in many directions yet possibly also offending those who have stated support for the magazine. In his column, titled "To beCharlie or not to be," he praised the magazine for not changing a thing. "But while they stretch out a conciliatory hand, so do they also keep their fist clenched tightly against what they believe threatens freedom of expression. And by that they insist that today's media public is nuanced enough to keep both ideas in mind simultaneously... This is where the genius ofCharlie lay. And it's still there."[21]
To comics critic Matthias Wivel, the contents of the issue were "mostly mediocre cartoons", particularly of the work of the murdered cartoonists. He had higher praise for the cartoons made in response to the shootings, in particular those by Sattouf, whose strip he called "Street-level Voltaire wittily written in sociolect"; Walter Foolz, for his international perspective; and the rejected-covers feature on the back page.[17]
The publication of the issue was widely covered in French media, which showed pictures of the front pages as well as other drawings from the issue.[25] The Turkish newspaperCumhuriyet printed several pages from theCharlie Hebdo issue[25] including a small picture of the cover.[26]
The publication of a new Muhammad cartoon was widely criticized in Muslim-majority countries, including by the JordanianAd-Dustour, the Saudi ArabianAl Watan, and the TurkishYeni Akit. Several accused Western media of double standards and called for a ban against religious insults. InEchorouk, Habib Rashdin criticised the French government for supportingCharlie Hebdo and compared it to acrusade against Muslims.[25]
Editor-in-chief Gérard Biard denied the cover implied the murderers should be absolved of their crimes, and rejected accusations of racism, Islamophobia, and provocation of Muslims byCharlie Hebdo. He asserted the need to upholdlaïcité in the face of global socio-political conditions that challenge such values.[17][27]
The leading Egyptian religious institutionDar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah denounced the issue, saying it "deepens hatred and discrimination between Muslims and others" and called on French political leaders to condemn what it consideredCharlie Hebdo's "racist act which works to incite sectarianism".[28] TheGrand Mufti of JerusalemMuhammad Ahmad Hussein condemned the cartoons as hurting the feelings of Muslims all over the world, while at the same time condemning terrorism and violence against innocents.[29]
FollowingCumhuriyet's publishing of a small picture of the Muhammad caricature, a court in Turkey banned websites that publishedCharlie Hebdo. The newspaper received death threats and came under police protection.[26]
ASpokesperson for the United States Department of StateMarie Harf said the U.S. fully supportedCharlie Hebdo's right to publish the issue.[30]Prime Minister of the United KingdomDavid Cameron also supported it. Australian Prime MinisterTony Abbott said to an Australian radio station that while he didn't like everything the magazine published, "he rather like[d]" the cartoon on the cover, which he interpreted as a symbol of forgiveness.[29]
On 15 January, Belgian policelaunched a fatal raid on terror suspects who were alleged to be plotting attacks on vendors selling the issue.[31]
AWiltshire Police officer asked a newsagent inCorsham for details on customers who bought the issue. When this came to public attention, the Wiltshire Police declared that they were seeking to defend the customers, and that the details gathered had been permanently deleted.[32]
In Iran, the government responded to the cartoons by organizing a second annualHolocaust cartoon competition.[33]
A newsagent in the English city ofOxford, himself a Muslim, abandoned plans to sell the issue after receiving threats of arson against his premises.[34]
The publication sparked riots inZinder,Niger, which resulted in five deaths. The city also experienced attacks on Christian-owned shops and a French cultural center was attacked when a crowd of 50 people set fire to its adjacent cafeteria, library, and offices.[35] Muslim crowds demonstrating against Muhammad's depiction attacked and set alight French businesses and churches with incendiary devices inNiamey;[36] and five deaths were reported.[1] Burned churches were also reported in easternMaradi andGouré.[37] According to police reports, at least 10 people were killed, more than 170 were injured, and 45 churches were burned.[1]
Other demonstrations occurred inAlgiers,Khartoum,Mogadishu,[1]Afghanistan,[38] andIndian-administered Kashmir.[39]Pakistan saw violent demonstrations inKarachi. Asif Hassan, a Muslim Arab photographer working for the French news agencyAFP, was seriously injured when he was shot in the chest.[40] In Algiers andJordan, protesters clashed with police, but there were non-violent demonstrations against the cartoon in Khartoum, Sudan,Russian Muslims in north Caucasus region ofIngushetia, and several other African countries –Mali,Senegal, andMauritania.[35][37]
